Living in Bellingham, where we get a lot of 15-20 stuff in the summer. Got pretty bored with kiting, so last summer I started trying to learn vulcans. And willy skippers. Going to beat my head against that again this summer. With the right board I might have a chance, so I just ordered a 2012 fanatic skate 109 from Kevin at sunset sailboards. After quite a bit of virtual demos, I took the plunge. If anybody is interested, I'll blog on my progress. Don't be alarmed if I go six months without any improvement to report. But according to the hype these boards are so Vulcan friendly you can't miss. We'll see about that.

I was waiting to see if I got at least one response to the post, "I bought a freestyle board", presumably posted only in the Pacific Northwest. If absolutely no one was going to read my posts, I figured I would just post in my head.

The board has seen a lot of water, but it's all been in the form of rain, in the back of my truck.

I might have more to say in the spring. At the moment the Nooksack River is emptying into Bellingham Bay at our local shallow flat-water launch. Causing me not to want to do anything that could cause me to fall in. 38-degree water, I'd guess. Tricks I'll attempt in February are limited to basic reaching, conservative gybing, and super cautious stock airs.

Here is a pic of the board. They've taken a 94-liter FSW and added an inch and a half of height to it to get the liters desired. It is 66.5 wide, so it's wide, but my 2002 JP Freestyle 109 was 70 wide.

I'm a striving freesylist (during the warmer times - I'll still sail winter) & interested in learning of good spots. You got my attention when you said flat and shallow. Squamish, Canada can produce flat conditions, or is can be quite choppy...

Bellingham is a pretty decent town for shallow flat water freestyle. We've got the north end of Bellingham bay that gets a good number of morning southerlies. But it's light. Ill need every bit of my 6m2 and 109 liters for that. Shallow for miles.

On really sunny days we have a spot that blows north and is 4.7-6.0. Also shallow. The sun heats up the mud in the morning so when the tide comes back in it will often be 80-degree water.

All of this is tragically unreliable, in terms of driving more than about 20 minutes. Hard to forecast, high skunk factor. More the merrier though!

Yep, up in BC. Bellingham (with no border wait) could be closer than Squamish. But Squamish has highly predictable winds & typically stronger winds. So, yes - happy to share. By last September I had a few (not very consistent) that I sailed out of but blew when trying to get my feet out of the straps (lesson learned - I should have been previoulsy working on sailing swtich stance in the straps shlogging).

Near 2 years ago I sprained my ankle shortly after getting a 98L JP freestyle (not using this board or trying anything unusual). This delayed by plans but but late summer, I was making attempts, though working through some tentativeness. The next year (2012) I was actively working on Vulcans, particularly when flat water conditions developed. It seems I'm going to be one of those that will need 1000 attempts to get it down.

Here's some of the things I've learned:
- a freestyle board with good pop helps
- I've been told big footstraps so foot can rotate in a crash without twisting ankles or knees - it's ALL crashing when you're learning
- flatter the water the better. Those that are consistent with Vulcans seems to go ok in chop but as a newbie to this, I've found it hard to get the pop timing in chop (it's a "pop" with weight forard not a typical jump with weight back)
- having some buddies that already have the skills or are working on something new is a big help for tips and motivation
- get your weight forward and over the board. This is very anti-intuitive but a requirement to getting the rotation and slide
- try and try again - find the patterns of where you mess up then talk about it &/or reasearch it (lots of vulcan tutorials on line). Often it's that step before where you mess up that needs work.

So best of luck & stick with it - I was frustrated from time to time especially when some days I seemed to regress! It's a cheap thrill but getting that first (though rare) long slide that goes on and on is amazing. I sail year round but the winter conditions don't suit learning vulcans so I'm looking forward to my next opportunities.

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